Due to increasing demand for broadband communications, high-speed telecommunication services, such as wireless mediums, which may be relatively inexpensive as compared to existing cable and landline technologies, may be provided to subscribers. Accordingly, it may be desirable to improve efficiency and/or capacity of broadband wireless communication systems.
A data link or medium access protocol (MAP) descriptor of a station, or another descriptor, may be transmitted to other stations to describe a data link layer or medium access control (MAC) layer of the station to the other stations for establishing wireless communication therebetween. There is typically a one-to-one correspondence between each transmission and data link or MAP descriptor in which the transmission is described. Transmitting data link or MAP descriptors with a high rate (e.g., once every transmission and/or frame) may result in excessive network overhead. For example, for voice-connection networks, relatively short packets (e.g., a few tens of bytes), which may be referred to as sub-burst transmissions, may be simultaneously transmitted over, for example, several hundred active connections, at intervals of approximately 20 ms, or four frames. In such embodiments, the resources consumed by the transmission of the broadcast data link or MAP descriptors may be significant as compared to the resources consumed by the voice' transmissions themselves.
A need exists for a more efficient way of transmitting MAP signal or data link descriptor data in the data link layer for reducing the overhead of the layer.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the drawings have not necessarily been drawn accurately or to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity or several physical components included in one functional block or element. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the drawings to indicate corresponding or analogous elements. Moreover, some of the blocks depicted in the drawings may be combined into a single function.